The Moonstone: British History in Literature
Virginia Newmyer and Susan Willens
Dates:
Register for one of three sessions:
Tuesday, October 2, 1-3 p.m. (Tuesday is sold out.)
Wednesday October 3, 1-3 p.m.
Thursday October 4, 1-3 p.m.
Price: $40 ($35 members)
Book:
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
This one-session class is a chance to analyze and discuss an important British novel and to consider it in relation to its subject, author, and historical period. This Fall, the Willens/Newmyer teaching team turns to Wilkie Collins’s 1868 book The Moonstone, which introduces a new figure in English fiction, the professional detective, whose scientific methods of observation and deduction solve difficult cases. The novel stirs together an English country house, a jewel of great value, ancient religion, theft, jealousy, drugs, and stealth. It ends with love rewarded. The Moonstone has much to reveal about Victorian society and human vagaries.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS
Virginia Newmyer has lectured frequently for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and in Great Britain on a wide variety of topics in British history and literature. She also teaches at OLLI at American University, as well as Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and Jupiter. For five years she and Susan Willens have been holding classes at Politics & Prose that examine the threads that join British fiction and history. She has been crazy about English novels since she was twelve years old.
Dr. Susan Willens, emerita professor of English at George Washington University, has joined Virginia Newmyer in offering classes on British history and literature at Politics & Prose for many years. She also teaches at the Smithsonian Resident Associates Program, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and other book-discussion classes. She is an incurable teacher!
